Violence overshadows Gaza handover plans

JERUSALEM - Violence has erupted in Jerusalem and the West Bank just as Israeli and Palestinian leaders said plans were taking shape for a peaceful handover of the Gaza Strip next month.

In the West Bank, Israeli troops killed four Palestinians, one of them Islamic Jihad leader Ribhi Amara, in a late-night undercover raid on Tulkarm refugee camp, witnesses said.

Israeli forces entered Tulkarm and surrounded a house planning to arrest 5 men suspected in suicide bombings in Tel Aviv in February and Netanya in July, a military source said.

When the soldiers arrived, a gunbattle ensued. Witnesses said four people, including Amara, were killed.

"The intention was to come to arrest them. All were wanted and all were armed," the source said. The Islamic Jihad group, bent on destroying Israel, vowed to avenge the killings.

In Jerusalem, a Palestinian stabbed to death an ultra-Orthodox Jew and wounded another in an Arab market near the busy Jaffa Gate of the Old City, home to Arabs and Jews.

A paramedic from the ZAKA rescue service told Reuters that both stab victims were American citizens although Israel Radio said the dead man was British.

Police said the stabbing had a nationalist background and the attacker fled. Israel Radio said the knife was 30cm long. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The attacks were the first since Israel on Tuesday finished removing the last of 15,000 settlers and their supporters from 21 enclaves in Gaza and 4 in the West Bank.

The pullout, during which Palestinian militants largely held their fire, is part of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to "disengage" from conflict with the Palestinians.

Palestinian cabinet minister Mohammed Dahlan said the sides had made progress on a sticking point - Israel's handover of a Gaza-Egypt border crossing to Palestinian control.

Dahlan said the two sides were working to ensure Gaza's Rafah border crossing with Egypt -- now manned by Israel and Egypt -- would be handed over to a combination of Egypt, the Palestinians and possibly a third party other than Israel.

Palestinians complain that Israel, which intends to maintain its grip over Gaza's sea lanes and airspace, will turn the teeming strip into a prison.

While Israel intends to remove troops from a Gaza-Egypt border strip where it tried to stop arms-smuggling to Palestinian militants, it has not said when it will turn over Gaza's side of the border crossings to Palestinian control.

Israel and Egypt finalised a deal on Wednesday for Cairo to replace Israeli troops along its border with Gaza with 750 special police to prevent arms smuggling to Palestinian militants.

Israel captured Gaza from Egyptian control in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979.

An Israeli official said Israel would proceed with plans to fence in the largest West Bank settlement, Maale Adumim, to link it to Jerusalem. Expropriation orders were issued last week for four Palestinian-owned tracts of land, the official said.

The move would effectively cut off Palestinians from East Jerusalem. Israel considers Jerusalem its eternal indivisible capital, a claim not recognised internationally.

The World Court has ruled all Israeli settlements in Gaza and the West Bank are illegal. Israel disputes this.

Some 1.4 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip and 2.4 million in the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said Israeli military forces were expected to leave Gaza in mid-September, completing a withdrawal from the territory after 38 years of occupation.

All that remained was to complete the demolitions of some 1700 homes, dismantle army bases and pull out troops from Gaza.

- REUTERS